The Status of the Non-Muslim Communities in the Ottoman Empire: A Non-Orientalised Decolonial Approach

Abstract

With a focus on the key developments and critical junctures that shaped and reshaped the relationship between the Ottomans and its non-Muslim subject communities, this paper seeks to understand the dynamics and the rationale behind the Ottoman policies and practices vis-a-vis non-Muslim communities. It will do so by offering a periodisation of Ottoman rule along four major pathways, each of which also provides the title of the respective section. The first period is referred to as structural exclusion by toleration over centuries, from the conquest of the respective territories to their incorporation into the imperial domain. The second phase is entitled integration via politics of recognition which basically covers the Tanzimat era (1838-1876). The third period is put under the heading of coercive domination and control, roughly corresponding to the Hamidian Period (1876-1908). And finally, the last period is concerned with the Young Turks regime (1908-1918), discussing its politics and policies towards non-Muslims communities framed under the title of nation-building by nation-destruction. The chapter titles act both as hypothesis and structuring elements of the periodisation presented. As such they shall help identify the dominant paradigm of each period pertinent to the status and situation of the communities under consideration, while connecting them in a plausible manner. This paper is motivated by a non-Orientalised decolonial approach to the study of the Ottoman empire as well as the nation-states established in the post-Ottoman political geographies.

Keywords

• Non-Muslim communities
• Ottoman reforms
• Millet System
• decolonial approach